Is there any software, free or commercial, that will allow me to backup live windows installations from a linux server? Its important also that the software can do a full recovery in the event of a hard drive crash.

Thanks!

I work at a university and we use Novell's ZenWorks imaging software to do what you're describing (you boot a Linux CD to download a Windows image and install it), but if you're not using Novell now you don't want to start.
There are open tools you can use for this kind of thing:
- http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/
- http://www.kegel.com/linux/pxe.html
Those are just things I found on Google. It's probably possible to automate Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/) and upload the images to an FTP server or something.
I believe that IBM's AccessIBM software and HP's new bootloader have the ability to perform network image installations, but you'd have to do some reading on that one.

When you say hard drive crash...do you mean a device failure, or a broken OS/filesystem? Because if you've got a device failure, it isn't important for most people where they install an image. What you /could/ do is grab some rails (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817121113), drop your new hard disk in there (with the computer off, of course), and use the Unix "dd" command to restore an image onto that new hard disk from an ISO.

"Is there any software, free or commercial, that will allow me to backup live windows installations from a linux server? Its important also that the software can do a full recovery in the event of a hard drive crash."

Mondo will do everything that you want and more.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/06/08/1410213


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Steve Stites

Hm... I must not have been very clear. I would like software, running on my linux servers, to backup live windows computers on the network. A live image if you will (norton ghost does this. makes an image of the drive while the computer is still on. no need for boot disks to image the drive.) The backup must be able to restore back to the windows machine in the event of that computers hd failure, or other such events which make the computer non-useable.

" I would like software, running on my linux servers, to backup live windows computers on the network. A live image if you will (norton ghost does this. makes an image of the drive while the computer is still on. no need for boot disks to image the drive.) The backup must be able to restore back to the windows machine in the event of that computers hd failure, or other such events which make the computer non-useable."

Mondo will do everything that you want and more.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/06/08/1410213


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Steve Stites